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Others have mentioned that this is almost certainly the result of a long course of A/B testing. The problem with this kind of aggressive A/B testing is that it

Others have mentioned that this is almost certainly the result of a long course of A/B testing. The problem with this kind of aggressive A/B testing is that it's a game of "how far can we push the user?" So instead of having enthusiastic fans, they have people who begrudgingly use them. Sure, Google picks up an extra nickel here or there, and I'm sure some PMs got a raise. But I don't know any strong Google boosters any more, and there are hordes of people ready to switch over once something tolerable comes along. (And from the comments, it seems like many of you have already found tolerable replacement search engines. I think I'm going to join you.)

komali2 7y ago
Haha, I remember when they announced chrome like 15 years ago, hyper excited 13 year old me literally emailed ceo@google.com with how excited I was. I uninstalled Firefox and installed chrome. And now I exclusively use Firefox again.
- yomly 7y ago
  Ha you are totally right, Chrome was such a joy to use back in the day... Remember when google was cool? https://youtu.be/SC-2VGBHFQI https://youtu.be/SC-2VGBHFQI
  - trts 7y ago
    These were brilliant ads. I remember installing Chrome not long prior to this period and it had its issues, but it was so fast that I couldn't not use it.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  My employer just banned Firefox. Unless you theoretically have a "business reason" that they accept.
  - eitland 7y ago
    That is crazy.
  - ninkendo 7y ago
    How do they enforce this? For that matter, why do they care?
    - komali2 7y ago
      Not unheard of on enterprise distributed machines. Before I was an engineer all my jobs were like this - two dudes (the only ones not in suits) tucked away in a dark room, changing our passwords for us when we forgot, setting up our email accounts, tweaking an internal firewall (so we couldn't watch nba games at work lol), shit like that. Machines were locked down, we couldn't install anything at all, they had to install it for us.
3xblah 7y ago
"The problem with this kind of aggressive A/B testing is that it's a game of "how far can we push the user?"" Google also does this with Chrome. Users are subjected to "field trials". No explicit consent is requested. Most users are probably unaware. While it is possible to see which trials one is a part of, Google is not transparent about what exactly these trials entail. https://www.ghacks.net/2013/04/05/field-trials-in-chrome-how-to-randomize-or-force-them/ https://www.ghacks.net/2013/04/05/field-trials-in-chrome-how... https://textslashplain.com/2017/10/18/chrome-field-trials/ https://textslashplain.com/2017/10/18/chrome-field-trials/ https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/master/testing/variations/README.md https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/master/test... https://blog.chromium.org/2012/05/changes-to-field-trials-infrastructure.html https://blog.chromium.org/2012/05/changes-to-field-trials-in... http://raeknowler.com/wtf-chromium http://raeknowler.com/wtf-chromium
userbinator 7y ago
Bing results still look like Google's used to, and although its index is smaller, that is slightly less important when Google seems to try its hardest to avoid showing you what you actually searched for. I've been using it more as a result, and also occasionally DDG and Yahoo; whereas for a long time my searches were exclusively on Google, now I find myself using other search engines because of the lack of quality of results and these other stupid changes that happened to Google within the past year or two.
- choathedolls 7y ago
  With nearly every browser supporting multiple search engines, and keywords, there's just no reason to exclusively use a single search engine anymore. You can have your browser's address bar search duckduckgo just by using a keyword like "DDG:" (or something even shorter D:) and then typing in your query. Same goes for other engines, or even super niche searches on any website. Makes workflow much easier too, instead of going from Bing/Google/DDG -> StackOverflow, set up a keyword for SO directly. Of course, if the website's search method is mediocre then you're SOL but that's more and more rare these days. If Bing's results aren't good, head back to the address bar and use another engine, if that's not good try another. So easy nowadays that it's kind of insane to me that there's still so many people who aggressively will ONLY use Google Search.
puranjay 7y ago
I'm convinced that most A/B testing is harmful in the long run. It moves metrics that makes investors look good but often at the cost of long-term brand likability and, for the lack of a better word, the company's "soul"
dredmorbius 7y ago
The technically accurate term for A/B testing is "user gaslighting".

komali2 7y ago

Haha, I remember when they announced chrome like 15 years ago, hyper excited 13 year old me literally emailed ceo@google.com with how excited I was. I uninstalled Firefox and installed chrome. And now I exclusively use Firefox again.

yomly 7y ago
Ha you are totally right, Chrome was such a joy to use back in the day... Remember when google was cool? https://youtu.be/SC-2VGBHFQI https://youtu.be/SC-2VGBHFQI
- trts 7y ago
  These were brilliant ads. I remember installing Chrome not long prior to this period and it had its issues, but it was so fast that I couldn't not use it.
perl4ever 7y ago
My employer just banned Firefox. Unless you theoretically have a "business reason" that they accept.
- eitland 7y ago
  That is crazy.
- ninkendo 7y ago
  How do they enforce this? For that matter, why do they care?
  - komali2 7y ago
    Not unheard of on enterprise distributed machines. Before I was an engineer all my jobs were like this - two dudes (the only ones not in suits) tucked away in a dark room, changing our passwords for us when we forgot, setting up our email accounts, tweaking an internal firewall (so we couldn't watch nba games at work lol), shit like that. Machines were locked down, we couldn't install anything at all, they had to install it for us.

3xblah 7y ago

"The problem with this kind of aggressive A/B testing is that it's a game of "how far can we push the user?"" Google also does this with Chrome. Users are subjected to "field trials". No explicit consent is requested. Most users are probably unaware. While it is possible to see which trials one is a part of, Google is not transparent about what exactly these trials entail. https://www.ghacks.net/2013/04/05/field-trials-in-chrome-how-to-randomize-or-force-them/ https://www.ghacks.net/2013/04/05/field-trials-in-chrome-how... https://textslashplain.com/2017/10/18/chrome-field-trials/ https://textslashplain.com/2017/10/18/chrome-field-trials/ https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/master/testing/variations/README.md https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/master/test... https://blog.chromium.org/2012/05/changes-to-field-trials-infrastructure.html https://blog.chromium.org/2012/05/changes-to-field-trials-in... http://raeknowler.com/wtf-chromium http://raeknowler.com/wtf-chromium

userbinator 7y ago

Bing results still look like Google's used to, and although its index is smaller, that is slightly less important when Google seems to try its hardest to avoid showing you what you actually searched for. I've been using it more as a result, and also occasionally DDG and Yahoo; whereas for a long time my searches were exclusively on Google, now I find myself using other search engines because of the lack of quality of results and these other stupid changes that happened to Google within the past year or two.

choathedolls 7y ago
With nearly every browser supporting multiple search engines, and keywords, there's just no reason to exclusively use a single search engine anymore. You can have your browser's address bar search duckduckgo just by using a keyword like "DDG:" (or something even shorter D:) and then typing in your query. Same goes for other engines, or even super niche searches on any website. Makes workflow much easier too, instead of going from Bing/Google/DDG -> StackOverflow, set up a keyword for SO directly. Of course, if the website's search method is mediocre then you're SOL but that's more and more rare these days. If Bing's results aren't good, head back to the address bar and use another engine, if that's not good try another. So easy nowadays that it's kind of insane to me that there's still so many people who aggressively will ONLY use Google Search.

puranjay 7y ago

I'm convinced that most A/B testing is harmful in the long run. It moves metrics that makes investors look good but often at the cost of long-term brand likability and, for the lack of a better word, the company's "soul"

dredmorbius 7y ago

The technically accurate term for A/B testing is "user gaslighting".